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[eba]

For some reason none of the spectrum analyser visualizations seem to be working in the latest version - the bars stay flat.

Tried to see if any of the other visualizations were affected, and clicked on collage which caused a crash.  Now I cannot change it from this as it crashes immediately upon clicking play unless I hide the display 

[JimH]

Maybe you're playing a filetype that is using Quicktime or WMP as your playback engine.

Try a reboot or reinstall.

[eba]

A reboot has stopped it from crashing

The spectrum analyser visuals are still not working though.  Playing ape and mp3 so nothing using wmp or quicktime.
All of the rest of the visualizations seem to be fine, even 3D spectrum analyser.

[marko]

Seeing the same thing here too.

Not only a flat line, but no other visuals either, just a flat line on a black screen.

[dougsing]

I'm having the same problem on all 3 of my machines.  I have tried uninstall/re-install, reboot and nothing seems to work.  One of my machines is running Windows XP, the second is running Windows 7 32-bit and the third is running Windows 7 64-bit.

[MusicHawk]

Visualizations broken for me too -- want to make sure it's being fixed ASAP, makes for an ugly display right now.  

Problem details: My normal playback display is a custom Track Info page that shows cover art and several stock and custom fields, and below that I display the Stereo Spectrum Analyzer, which visitors think is the coolest thing ever. This worked until 15.0.87, including in MC 14 and MC 13.

Right now, it's broken. I can show my Track Info (fortunately it's defaulting to this because the list is no longer there to choose it). But Spectrum Analyzer shows a blank area with red X. If I open it directly it's just a flat line.

Also oddly, while my cover art displays, when there is none for a particular track, instead of MC's default icon there's just a red X.

(Alas, a major music party is happening tomorrow at my place, 50+ people of an international student orchestral group who would see how cool MC is except they won't unless a fixed build shows up Real Soon Now...).

[dpippel]

Yep, same here. They were working fine before this build.

[marko]

A fix is coming soon, though you will still have issues for the time being if you elect to use a glass enabled skin.

[MusicHawk]

Well, it's half-fixed. See bug report for 15.0.92.

[Alex B]

From the build 92 thread:

Visualizations problem of 15.0.87 half-fixed in 15.0.92 (I *hope* half-fixed, vs. intentionally changed...) Apparently it is still not possible to show both Track Info and a Visualization simultaneously on the same screen. Unfortunate regression.

My normal music playback display (in MC14 and MC15 until now) has three "panes":

1. Top is a custom Track Info page (cover art plus various text tags), which shows as desired.

2. Middle is a visualization, Stereo Spectrum Analyzer. THIS IS NOW BROKEN.

3. Bottom is Playing Now, showing the current track, a couple of the prior tracks, and a few of the upcoming tracks.

My many visitors are very impressed by this setup because they see so much all on one screen. Once I "sell" them on getting MC I help them configure their playback to the same layout.

The problem in 15.0.87 and still in .92 is with the Visualization. If I show only Stereo Spectrum Analyzer, it works fine (fixed from .87). But if shown in a pane as described above, it's just a red X -- broken. I haven't found any way to get it to show as it has for the past couple of years.

Also, selecting Track Info used to show a list of available layouts for this, including the several stock layouts plus my custom layout (because I put it in the folder where the stock layouts live). Now, there's no list at all, but fortunately MC is remembering the selected Track Info.

Are you using a track info template that contains the Stereo Spectrum Analyzer?

Matt said the following when the build 81 was released for closed beta testing:

I should add a disclaimer that embedding 2D visualizations in Track Info pages is no longer possible.

IE can show COM controls and 2D visualizations used to be a COM control.

Now visualizations are C++ interfaces like all other plugins (except interface plugins).  There is no easy way to inject a C++ interface into IE, without making a COM wrapper.  Even then, piping the data (since Media Center didn't create the interface directly) is difficult.

Hopefully this won't be too big a deal to anyone.

[MusicHawk]

Thanks for sharing the inside info. Bummer.

Is it a "big deal"? No, but it's a "medium deal" because allowing MC to show a dynamic visualization along with track info and cover art makes for a complete, lively, compelling display -- really, I believe seeing mine has "sold" MC to several people. Now it's gone.

It's not just 2D visualization that is gone -- I get the same red-X behavior when selecting any of the 3D visualizations while displaying Track Info (but I don't care for any of them, so no loss).

AND... On a Track Info (HTML) page, when the track does not have a cover image, there's now a big red X; in prior versions of MC's HTML rendering this "image not found" error symbol did not appear, mainly because a default MC image was shown. Presumably that image isn't where it used to be... which I can probably fix if anyone knows where it used to be located and named. Seems like a bug.

Perhaps abandonment of a COM control is to make MC less OS-specific? That would be a good thing. But I've lost what was a wonderful display for several years...because...? Is there a new benefit I'm overlooking? If there's some other way to allow HTML (Track Info) and live visualization, I hope it will be pursued because otherwise MC's HTML mode (used to show Track Info in various styles) is just a flat screen of dull data.

SUGGESTION: Could there be 3 REAL panes, one with IE/HTML, one with the visualization, and one with Playing Now?

[Alex B]

Thanks for sharing the inside info.

Perhaps not so "inside", the info just didn't make its way to the release thread. I believe Matt would have liked to include the same comment when the build 87 was released publicly, but that was nine days later and a lot had happened since the changes in the build 81.

To Jim and Matt, it might be a good idea to include also the possible "disclaimers" for the intermediate builds when a public build is released.

Could there be 3 REAL panes, one with IE/HTML, one with the visualization, and one with Playing Now?

With a little trickery, it is already possible. You can sync two zones and show two Playing Now displays in the Split View mode. See the attached screenshot. However, it might not be a very practical solution because the file lists seem to not always stay open or closed when other things are adjusted inside the UI.

Another workaround would be to use Visualization Studio and create a visualization that resembles the track info template you have used. A visualization can include tags and cover art (e.g. "Clean-n-Tidy").


Log in to the forum if you can't see the attachment.

[Matt]

Thanks for the help Alex.  It was just an oversight that the disclaimer didn't make it to the public board.

I'm sorry if the switch away from COM causes anyone trouble.

The new visualization pipeline improves performance by switching to a pull instead of push model.  And there are good technical reasons for our shift away from COM, like better performance, support for portable installations, cross-platform compatibility, etc.

Someday, we may make an insertable COM control wrapper that could host any Media Center visualization.  However, there are some technical hurdles to doing this, so I don't expect it to happen during the v15 cycle.

For example, each zone has its own visualization data.  The zone also owns and creates any visualization.  The provides a clear ownership hierarchy.  If the visualization is created by IE instead, it must bind to an existing zone.  But this is problematic since the ownership hierarchy is disrupted.  A zone could be deleted while IE still showed the visualization that is bound to the zone.  There are methods that can work around this (reference counting, callbacks, etc.) but implementation is not trivial.

[rick.ca]

Another workaround would be to use Visualization Studio and create a visualization that resembles the track info template you have used. A visualization can include tags and cover art (e.g. "Clean-n-Tidy").

This seems to work fairly well. Dare I ask...Is there any documentation for Visualization Studio?

[MusicHawk]

I've experimented with visualizations, and if there are docs, tips and tricks to visualizations, I haven't stumbled upon them yet (see bottom of this message). So, far, it seems like a complex substitute for the straightforward HTML mode that has been devolved.

While it seems possible to show the same text and cover art and spectrum analyzer (or whatever), it doesn't look as good and is a challenge to position everything cleanly. By default cover art/images are much lower resolution than the originals, fonts are fuzzy, etc. When the same images and text is shown via HTML everything is always sharp and clean. The resolution graphic visualization problem can be improved by clicking Display Quality > Highest Quality (default Normal is what looks fuzzy) -- but this setting took a while to discover.

The problem was that many Playback display settings (such as Display Quality) are only available while a track is playing. When not playing, the settings aren't grayed-out, they just disappear, so there's no clue they exist. Why not provide access all the time, via Options > Play > Display, to ALL the Play mode settings, instead of having them scattered around and appearing only some of the time? Play settings seem just as important as the other things on the Options menu -- more important than many.

Even finding Visualization Studio is tricky; the link to it doesn't seem to appear on a menu unless a track is actually playing and showing a visualization. Then Visualization Studio shows up under Display Options -- but disappears the instant the track stops playing. I think it's actually an Advanced Tool and should *always* be on that menu.


Side Note: MC15 > Tools > Plug-In Manager > Download Plug-Ins goes to a web page that does not explicitly list ANY MC15 Plug-Ins. The page begins with "1. Before You Start Choose: Media Center Version" but the newest version listed is 14.0. I know most MC14 Plug-Ins work with MC15, but there's no evidence of this. And with the devolution of MC15.0.87, some of the visualizations no longer work correctly because they are HTML plus embedded COM visualization. Seems someone needs to review all and mark for MC15 only those that still work as intended; a quick look suggests most of the 28 Track Info Plug-Ins are now obsolete.


Searching the wiki, this seems to be the entire docs of Visualization Studio at http://wiki.jrmediacenter.com/index.php/Visualization_Studio

To access Visualization Studio, you must be displaying a visualization in the Playing Now Display Pane. Right-click in the pane and select Visualization Studio.

A Visualization is composed of a variety of components that you can add, customize, or remove. Visualization Studio includes: flush, Super Transform, Transform, Blob Oscilloscope, Dot Fountain, Image, Oscilloscope, Particle, Spectrum Analyzer, Starfield, Super-Scope, Text and Layer.

If you play around with these and their settings, you can come up with some pretty nifty visualizations!

...a tad light on details. The visualization studio files (.mjv) are actually text wrapped in tags, so they can be edited outside of Visualization Studio, IF documented.


I am seriously considering reverting my playback PC back to MC 15.0.80 -- a horrible workaround but losing the coolest display of ANY media player is hard to accept. I value a Play screen packed with useful information -- everyone (about 60 symphony musicians and friends were listening to my MC yesterday) who sees my system LOVES seeing title, artist, year, chart position, album, composer, artist comments, performance comments, recording comments, etc -- much of it from custom fields -- plus cover art/image, plus dynamic display of the audio (Stereo Spectrum Analyzer). People will literally gather around the screen, or dash back to it every time an interesting song starts. As a test I've shown people the other visualizations -- bouncing icons and psychedelic colors -- and it's boring because it offers no value. This is why I carefully crafted an HTML+COM page. In my situation, for music playback MC15 is now LESS useful than MC14 or even MC13.

[AussieBill]

Well, count me very unimpressed. This is NOT COOL.

I've been using NNTH Track Info II for years, and used a spectrum analyzer to make a dynamic, cool Playing Now screen.

Now, it is a white box with a big red X in the corner.

The pros and cons of dropping COM are irrelevant to most end users, HOW you implement features is your call. But when you remove a very noticeable visual element/capability from the main Playing Now screen it is a big deal.

Go do a sort-by-most-recent look at the TrackInfo templates list.   Gooroomp Info was added 06-08-2010 and before that JaeRoViz on 10-05-2009...  This should give you an idea about the lack of customization that is supported by code and documentation. There is already a shortage of dynamic TrackInfo templates and now it seems you have taken away one of the coolest features.  The least you could do is have deployed a trackinfo template that uses this new visualization pipeline that does the same thing as an example to the devs.

I love the product and upgrade every release (and will continue) but to me at least, you guys focus way too much on very niche infrastructure features (zones, dsp etc) and way too little on the visuals, especially customization frameworks.  This eye candy is the stuff that sells products like this. I spend half my time working with the world-class tagging and management features, but when that is done I want to play the music and have a dynamic, world-class customizable UI, using a framework that supports a vibrant community of plugin/template devs.  As I said previously, the lack of uploaded templates speaks volumes about the support for this.

Sorry for the rant, but (I understand unintentionally) not warning about a much-used feature sucks.

Here is my user experience

[AussieBill]

Question to Matt:

OK, if this change is final and deployed, where are the updated docs on how we are supposed to use this new pipeline??

[rick.ca]

I don't have the technical background to judge the wisdom of what has been done, but it certainly seems plausible this is just one of those things that has to go in order to move ahead. If that's the case, it would be more productive to discuss where we should be going from here.

Is it feasible to improve Visualization Studio so it's more capable and user-friendly, or will it always be a poor substitute for HTML? The fact it can only use data provided by pre-defined variables is rather limiting. Would it be possible to add the ability to access any data field? If HTML is the only acceptable solution, but will take some time to be re-introduced, are there easy improvements that would make Visualization Studio an acceptable temporary solution—like adding more variables?

And which solution is more likely to provide me with synchronized lyrics?

[MusicHawk]

From Matt:

For example, each zone has its own visualization data.  The zone also owns and creates any visualization. 

Perhaps MC shouldn't toss out fundamental behavior -- having a highly-desired playback display for most users most of the time -- to instead offer an "advanced" ability to display playback of multiple zones. The same notion of other threads, where making MC friendly and useful to 99% overrides special capabilities for 1%.

Simply lock the playback display to zone 1, which is very likely to be the local audio output for the vast majority of users. Make this official: The client MC displays zone 1 ("local") audio visualizations, and that's all. If zone 1 is always the local zone (by telling users it is), it's the zone being heard by whomever is looking at the PC, therefore seeing MC's display -- it all ties together.

To avoid the binding problem, don't let zone 1 be deleted -- it is always the permanent/primary/local/display zone, simple for users to understand. (This restriction is extremely common in database environments, where user 1 is hard-coded as administrator and can't be deleted.)

My hunch is, far few users would be bummed by locking visualization to zone 1 than the new "it's all gone" mode.

These suggestions apply to music playback display, so if the .87 change is actually to handle future video at the expense of current audio, that re-raises the discussion of whether one MC instance can truly handle all media without too many compromises.

[rick.ca]

Perhaps MC shouldn't toss out fundamental behavior...

Simply lock the playback display to zone 1...

I don't understand what you're suggesting. That the change is not necessary and should be reversed? Or that creating a COM wrapper is much easier than Matt thinks, and should be done immediately? If an improved Visualization Studio could produce the same result, what would be wrong with that?

[AussieBill]

>> If an improved Visualization Studio could produce the same result, what would be wrong with that?

What is wrong is that an important (to some/many users) feature has been completely removed BEFORE a replacement has been provided.

I've downgraded back to release 80 and will stay there until this is sorted out.

[MusicHawk]

I'm all for an improved Visualization Studio, if that's MC's preferred architecture, but it needs to be reasonable to use, which perhaps just means documentation, though it might also be that current VS 1.0 needs work; it seems rather crude.

But, even a better VS will be a problem for users because equivalent HTML+COM visualizations must be recreated, not transported. Working with HTML is a common skill, working with VS probably not so common.

The reasonable JR question is, what to focus on: improve VS, or create an IE/HTML COM wrapper, or use some other approach -- and, How Soon? It would be ideal to use an architecture that doesn't make all the HTML+COM visualizations obsolete, as just happened.

Whatever the best path, I'm mainly reacting to Matt's thought that it's difficult to architect the playback visualization for multiple zones. I suggest this is not really necessary, just lock the visualization display to zone 1, guessing this will be fine for 90% or even 99% of users. Make the task simpler and maybe it can be implemented sooner.

Of course, it would be nice to have MC restore the lost HTML+COM "for now" while working on its replacement, so users aren't forced to take a step backward.

[rick.ca]

I've downgraded back to release 80 and will stay there until this is sorted out.

It may be that forcing you to hold at a build that suits you is not a necessary or reasonable thing to do. But we don't know that. It's certainly not reasonable to expect all progress cease until one non-essential feature is brought over a hurdle.

The reasonable JR question is, what to focus on: improve VS, or create an IE/HTML COM wrapper, or use some other approach -- and, How Soon?

I agree—those are the questions. And I suspect some discussion about user needs and preferences would be helpful in making those decisions. VS is rather limited and crude, but investing more into it may not be productive if most require a better solution.

Of course, it would be nice to have MC restore the lost HTML+COM "for now" while working on its replacement, so users aren't forced to take a step backward.

Sure it would be nice, but I'm willing to assume the change was made for reasons other than to annoy users who rely on the feature.

[Mars]

What is wrong is that an important (to some/many users) feature has been completely removed BEFORE a replacement has been provided.

I've downgraded back to release 80 and will stay there until this is sorted out.

Me and my family we have been using TrackInfo with Visualizations since a lot of time ago and it's a great value for us.

We have also downgraded to 15.0.80.  

[AoXoMoXoA]

We have also downgraded to 15.0.80.  

where can one find version 15.0.80 to download?

[rick.ca]

where can one find version 15.0.80 to download?

http://files.jriver.com/mediacenter/MediaCenter150080.exe